This is a bigger thing than it sounds. We've had our Gattaca moment with Toad---he has a little cleft in his soft palate. It wasn't discovered until about two hours after he was born, there was no outward sign of it at all. But it means he can't nurse, he can't generate the suction. Good lawd we tried, and after a few weeks, he was well below birth weight instead of gaining.
We now use a device called a Haberman bottle to feed him, and Barbaloot expresses milk every few hours to load into the Haberman. He's gone from 60 to 100 ml a feeding in about 3 weeks of diligence.
About Christmastime, if he keeps gaining weight, he will withstand the general anaesthesia to undergo surgery to join the muscles in the back of his throat, and mend the cleft.
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